It's hard to express what words like this mean to me. Positive feedback when you put effort into designing content for teaching is like successfully crossing the finish line of a race you've put time and energy into. It's very emotional. But also gives you a mind to prepare for the next race. Thank you Anya 🙏
I always doubt my own competence. I'm always nervous and unsure of the outcome. Which will often surprise people who know how long I've been doing this and seen me take to the stage and heard me on UX Podcast. I've come to learn that the worry and apprehension is necessary. It makes you humble. It makes you care. It makes you want to be of significance, rather than waste people's time.
This also highlights how important it can be for us all to regularly offer unsolicited praise to people around us. It may not only make their day, but can make the whole difference between pursuing a line of thinking or completely abandoning it, because any approval was left unspoken.
When I first started talking about design ethics (six years ago now) I thought it would be mostly a sideproject without much interest. That people would dismiss me as naive, impractical or overly idealized. The response to my first ethics talk was overwhelming and I felt incredibly blessed.
And, contrary to my expectations, broader interest has truly grown over the years, and more and more companies are inviting me to speak on the topic, not just on design ethics but on the ethics of digitalisation as a whole. I have also learned so much more, gone deeper, seeing many systemic issues steering us wrong. I am always looking for support to bring more of these to light and addressing them.
I'm incredibly thankful to Ambition Empower for bringing me in as a track leader, allowing me to do just this. And for the participants who show up, wanting like me to understand the issues better and are at the ready to start making a difference at their companies and in their teams.
We are learning. Together. We are making a difference. Together.
Thank you for reading. Since you made it this far I wanted to give you a link to my post that may offer some helpful insights about teaching online: https://axbom.com/teaching-online/